Lenawee County Commission Votes 5-4 to not Renew ZenCity Contract

Adrian, MI – The Lenawee County Board of Commissioners voted to not renew a contract between themselves and a company called ZenCity. The program is used to gather information online about how the community feels about their local government.

It does this by using thousands of publicly-available data points from resident interactions and distills information to help local decision-makers better prioritize resources, track performance, and connect with their communities.

The Commission spent many hours over the last year or so debating whether ZenCity is a good tool for Lenawee County.

Critics of the company have pointed-out that they are an Israel-based organization that is using data-mining to gather information from residents without them knowing. They have also said that the majority of the people of Lenawee County do not, or would not, voice their concerns with the government through social media or surveys…but rather through phone calls, emails, and face to face interaction.

Supporters of ZenCity have said that this type of service is another tool that the county uses to not only make decisions, but to give a tech-savvy generation a chance to be heard by their local government. They contest that in-person public forums are not an ideal place for younger people to interact…but they might prefer the online option. Also, some commissioners said that inconvenient meeting times keep many people from attending gatherings. Some pushed-back on comments made about the company being based in Israel…saying that comments like that are zenophobic.

After hours of debate, with some of it getting heated, the Lenawee County Commissioners voted 5-4 to send a 90-day notice of cancellation to be submitted to ZenCity.

Dustin Krasny, Nancy Jenkins-Arno, Kevon Martis, Ralph Tillotson, and Jim Van Doren voted to cancel… Dawn Bales, “KZ” Bolton, Terry Collins, and David Stimpson voted to not cancel the contract with ZenCity.